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You Can't Steer a Parked Car

Sometimes the most effective way of communicating the right way to do something is by highlighting the consequences of doing the opposite. It’s how sitcoms work. By creating humorous situations that highlight the consequences of breeching social norms, those same norms are reinforced.

At the 2017 Blackboard Analytics Symposium, A. Michael Berman, ‎VP for Technology & Innovation at CSU Channel Islands and Chief Innovation Officer for California State University, harnessed his inner George Costanza to deliver an ironic, hilarious, and informative talk about strategies for failing with data.

What does this self-proclaimed ‘Tony Robbins of project failure’ suggest?

Set unclear goals – setting unclear goals takes a lot of hard work and may require compromise. It’s way more democratic to let everyone set their own goals. That way, everyone can have their own criteria for success, which guarantees that whatever you do almost everyone is going to think of you as a failure.

Avoid Executive Support – Going out and getting executive support is also a lot of work. It means going to busy executives, getting time of their calendar, and speaking to them in terms they understand. It also means taking the time to listen and understand what is important to them. Why not go it alone? Sure, it’s unlikely that you will achieve very much, but it’ll be a whole lot of fun.

Emphasize the Tech – Make the project all about technology. And make sure to use as many acronyms as possible. Larger outcomes don’t matter. They are not your problem. Focus on what you do best: processing the data and making sure it flows through your institution’s systems.

Minimize Communication – Why even bother to make people’s eyes glaze over when talking about technology when you can avoid talking to anyone at all? Instead of having a poor communication strategy, it’s better to have no communication strategy at all. You’ll save the time and inconvenience of dealing with people questioning what you do, because they won’t know what you’re doing.

Don’tCelebrate Success – If you have done everything to fail, but still succeed despite yourself, it’s very important not to celebrate. Why bother having a party when people are already getting paid? Why take time out of the work day to reward people for doing their jobs? Isn’t it smarter to just tell everyone to get back to work? Seems like a far more efficient use of institutional resources.

Speaking from personal experience, Michael Berman insists that following these five strategies will virtually guarantee that you drive your data project into the ground. If failing isn’t your thing, and you’d rather succeed in your analytics projects, do the opposite of these five things and you should be just fine.